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Eric Rohmer's 1996 A SUMMER'S TALE finally gets belated American releaseA SUMMER’S TALE is a 1996 French comedy by the great Eric Rohmer that wasn't released theatrically in the U.S. until this year. It tells of a recent university graduate (Melvil Poupaud) vacationing on the Brittany coast who becomes involved with two young local women while waiting for his sort-of girlfriend to join him. Part 3 of Rohmer’s “Tales of the Four Seasons,” A Summer's Tale has a 97% “fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes.com.Time Out London hails it as "the sunniest and funniest of Rohmer’s seasonal tales...Wonderfully witty...As suspenseful and manipulative as a classical farce.” See it in an imported 35mm color print from the Institut Français on Friday or Saturday. Here's the trailer.

MISS LOVELY is set in Mumbai's exploitation-movie industry during 1980sAshim Ahluwalia's MISS LOVELY is a new kind of Indian movie, neither Bollywood nor Bengali art film. Set in the netherworld of Mumbai/Bombay's exploitation-movie industry during the 1980s, the film focuses on two brothers who secretly produce and peddle sleazy sex-horror flicks. Enter Pinky—an alluring and mysterious young ingenue who just may be their ticket out of the grindhouse ghetto. Part noir melodrama, part authentic period piece, this visually stunning work from a director steeped in American avant-garde cinema evokes Fassbinder, Scorsese, Oshima, Dario Argento, and others. Sight & Sound critic Jonathan Romney calls Miss Lovely "a shock to the system—An Indian film like I’ve never seen...Mesmerizing." Catch its Cleveland theatrical premiere on Friday or Saturday. Watch the trailer here.

Grémillon series continues with 1932 racial drama DAÏNAH LA MÉTISSE, preceded by Méliès’ "A Trip to the Moon" Jean Grémillon's second sound film DAÏNAH LA MÉTISSE (1932) offers an unflinching take on race and class. (Gaumont, the company that produced it, cut the film by a whopping 39 minutes when first released, and the footage has never been restored.) The movie takes place on an ocean liner where there's always music or a masked ball to occupy the wealthy passengers. The desirable Daïnah, mixed-race wife (métisse) of the ship's black magician, has a fateful encounter with a white engine mechanic (Charles Vanel). The Time Out Film Guide calls this rarity “one of the most mysterious, sultry and sombre tales ever made in France.” See it Saturday in an imported 35mm print from the Institut Français! It will be preceded at 5:30 pm by Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (Le voyage dans la lune, France, 1902), the famous silent film in which the moon gets a rocket ship in the eye! We will show a 35mm print of the new color-tinted restoration that opened the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Special admission to this program is $10; Cinematheque members, CIA I.D. holders, and age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.

1932 French masterpiece WOODEN CROSSES commemorates the centenary of the outbreak of WWI We commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War with a little-known-in-America 1932 French masterpiece that is often called that country’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Raymond Bernard's WOODEN CROSSES follows a patriotic student as he idealistically joins the French army, then experiences the harrowing, unheroic realities of trench warfare. Battle scenes from this WWI classic were repurposed in John Ford's The World Moves On (1934) and Howard Hawks' The Road to Glory (1936). Pierre Blanchar, Charles Vanel, and Antonin Artaud star. It will be shown from DVD on Friday at 7:30 pm. Print this email and present it at the box office and pay only $7 ($6 if you're a Cinematheque member); it's our Deal of the Week! (Limit two discount admissions per print-out)